![]() Pull it off with the three-bucket cleanup system: First off, get as much paint off of the tools as possible by wiping brushes on the edge of the paint can, or scraping rollers with a 5-in-1 tool to squeeze out the excess Nantucket Dune Taupe and Salmon Sunset Pink. So handle it (or at least the first couple of rinses) like you would any other hazardous waste and haul it to your local dropoff center. Paint – basically, a colored dye by nature – falls into this category. Here's HowĪ representative from your local Corvallis water treatment facility pointed me to your municipal code, Inara, which prohibits the discharge of anything with dyes or other colors they can’t remove. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Others are more exacting with their advice. Here’s where it gets interesting, though: Some wastewater treatment facilities say it’s OK to send the wash water down the drain for treatment (like Grist’s hometown of Seattle). That wash water is less worrisome than full-strength paint, but that doesn’t mean you can dump the dirty water on the ground, into a septic system, or anywhere it might wash straight into your friendly neighborhood waterways. That means we cannot pour the paint itself down the drain (head over here for more on how to safely dispose of leftovers) and we should be thoughtful about how we dispose of the water we use to wash our painting tools. And the zero-VOC side of the equation means it doesn’t spew health-damaging, ozone-creating fumes into your home and the atmosphere, either.īut we can’t let latex paint completely off the hook – it may still harbor biocides to inhibit mildew, acrylics and vinyls, crystalline silica, and various additives and emulsifiers. Kudos for using zero-VOC (volatile organic compounds) latex paint, Inara: As you already know, latex pain is water-based and therefore not considered toxic, as opposed to oil-based paints. Proper care and cleaning will keep your tools in masterpiece-ready shape for years, so it would indeed be wasteful to treat them as short-lived disposables. They (or, more likely, one of their lackeys) cleaned their brushes for tomorrow’s works of art, and so should you. ![]() Did Michelangelo toss his brushes after a hard day at the Sistine Chapel? Did da Vinci chuck his bristles once he had Mona Lisa’s smile just so? I confess I don’t know this for sure, but doubt it.
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